


Several breaths of strangers’ air

by Teaotter



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Break Up, Crying, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Polyamory, References to Domestic Violence, Secrets, rebuilding relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5692681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is still a ghost in the room for both of them, three where there are only two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Several breaths of strangers’ air

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PhoenixFalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/gifts).



> I died in a car crash three months ago  
> They burned me 'til I glowed  
> And crumbled to a fine gray sand  
> Now I am nothing, everywhere  
> Several breaths of strangers’ air  
> And all thoughts ever written in my hand  
> They plant my tree out in the yard  
> It grows but takes the winter hard
> 
> \--Vienna Teng, Passage

It takes almost a month for Arthur to finally find Dom. The other man had scattered false leads behind him like chaff in the wind, as if he expected to be hunted by someone with more resources than the American police were likely to expend. Then again, perhaps it's the only way Dom knows how to run: with all of himself.

But Arthur does find him, in Montreal. It should be so obvious, that Dom would go where he could hear French in the air. Arthur can barely stand it himself -- every rolled 'r' and soft vowel makes him want to scream -- but Dom always did hold on too hard, even to the things that hurt him.

Dom is sitting this morning at a tiny bakery, a half-eaten croissant on the table in front of him and an untouched cafe au lait by his elbow. He's unshaven, disheveled, downright slovenly even for his own casual tastes, much less Arthur's. His jacket is wrinkled as if he'd wrestled with it through the night, his eyes red-rimmed and sleepless as he squints against the early-morning sun.

Arthur has had weeks to plan for this moment, so his own sleeplessness doesn’t show on his face. His dark suit is perfectly tailored and pressed, and his hair is slicked back and wouldn’t dare come out of place. He even shined his goddamned shoes for this, because clothes are armor and Arthur knows he’s going to need every piece he has to get through this with his dignity intact.

Because Dom didn’t bother to call him. Dom didn’t even leave a message with Miles, not a single word. The three of them had been together for years, _years_ , and Dom couldn’t be bothered even to leave a message. It was cruel, and selfish, and Arthur deserved so much more than that.

He takes a sharp, ugly pride at the surprise on Dom’s face when the other man finally looks up.

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns, right, Dom?”

Dom stares at him for a moment, recognition and confusion fighting their way across his features. “Arthur.”

Arthur feels his own face twist in a snarl. “Did you think I wouldn't look for you?”

“I didn't.” Dom shakes his head, his hands curling into fists. When he speaks again, it clearly isn't the same sentence. “You have to know I didn't...”

But this, at least, Arthur had expected. “If I thought you had, you'd be dead now.”

He means it. He bites the words out through his own grief, but he couldn't live in a world with Mal's murderer. He couldn't bear it. 

He had wondered, when he first heard, the word passed through the grapevine of their tiny illicit community. The people closest to you can be capable of remarkable violence, in real life as much as in dreams. 

Certainly, the three of them had argued enough. Mal would fight until she was too exhausted to form words, Dom with a deep and abiding cruelty, Arthur himself with cutting viciousness. Mal called it passion; Arthur called it pathological. But Arthur was the only one of them who would ever walk out.

He'd walked out of their house ten weeks ago, after an argument about dropping through multiple dream levels that none of them had won. A month later, and Mal was dead. Arthur couldn't help but wonder whether the rumors were true.

But he knows one thing deep in his bones: if Dom had attacked Mal, he'd have used his hands. He would've been found still cradling the body of his dead wife, and he never would've run. Dom could never have pushed her away, much less out a window.

Dom had told the police that Mal jumped, and that made more sense, even if it made no sense at all. Mal was constantly flinging herself into things, with Dom and Arthur following after. 

Even if Dom hadn't believed that Arthur would follow him this time.

Dom's expression crumples. “I should be. I should be dead.”

He scrubs a hand across his face and his breath catches, and Arthur knows the man is about to start weeping. Probably not for the first time this morning, but Arthur can't bear the idea of airing his grief in public this way.

So Arthur grabs Dom's shoulder and tugs him to his feet. Dom leans against him drunkenly, and Arthur pats him on the back reassuringly for their audience. He's helping his hungover friend get home, there's nothing to see here. 

The room Arthur is renting by the week is a tiny thing, with a thin single bed, a rickety table, and a window dim with grime. But it has its own outside door and its own bathroom; the privacy is a luxury Arthur wants more than space.

Dom stumbles with him unseeingly, down the alley and through a small park. He barely looks up when Arthur lets him into the room, and falls weeping to the bed before Arthur can even lock the door.

Dom's sobs wrack his body, harsh animal noises torn from him as he rocks convulsively. He doesn't look up, or back. He doesn't reach for Arthur, or even acknowledge his presence. Dom might as well be alone in the room.

Arthur feels a terrible anger sweep through him. He understands grieving Mal; he'd torn up the hotel room in Kyoto when he heard the news. He'd called Miles and raged when he couldn't put Dom on the phone -- then cried on the floor for days before cleaning himself up and throwing himself into his quest to hunt Dom down.

But this. All he sees is the line of Dom's back. The way Dom is hiding his face behind his hands. As if he has deliberately shut out the rest of the world. Deliberately leaving Arthur alone.

Arthur can't. He can't.

Arthur finds himself climbing on top of the other man, stopping Dom's rocking with the weight of his own body. He lets himself dig a knee into Dom’s thigh hard enough to hurt, but Dom doesn't even flinch away. Arthur finally pries the man's hands away from his face and pins them down against the bed with both of his.

He stares into Dom's face from six inches away, but Dom still has his eyes squeezed tightly closed. He's still shutting Arthur out.

“Look at me,” Arthur grits out. 

“I can't.” The other man shakes his head and tries to turn away.

Arthur squeezes Dom's wrists harder and digs in with his knee again. “Look at me!”

Dom's eyes open slowly, bloodshot and still watery, darting up to Arthur's face and away again.

“I'm sorry.” The words fall out of his mouth quickly, followed by a shaky breath and another sob. “I'm so sorry.”

Without thinking, Arthur hauls back a hand and slaps him. Dom jerks when the blow lands, but doesn't make another move. His breath hitches again, then smooths out.

Arthur can't keep his voice steady. “Are you done?”

Dom takes another deep breath, but it doesn't shake on the way out. “For the moment.”

Dom smells like sour sweat and old coffee, but underneath is the wool and detergent and aftershave scent Arthur's brain still associates with home. Arthur wants to wallow in that smell; he wants to bury his face in the shadow between Dom's neck and his shoulder and just breathe.

But Dom hasn't reached for him, hasn't held him, hasn't made a single fucking move that suggests he's still in love with Arthur at all. So maybe Arthur doesn't have the right to that scent any more. 

Arthur sits up. He lets Dom sit up. They end up sitting side by side on the bed, backs against the cold, bare wall.

The silence stretches out between them until Arthur can't stand it any more. “Tell me what happened.”

Dom takes a shaky breath beside him.

“Don't,” Arthur cuts in. He couldn't listen to Dom cry again. “Don't feel it. Just tell me what happened.”

Arthur doesn't look at Dom's face, but he can see the other man's hands fist in the blankets, then slowly, deliberately relax.

“After you left,” Dom said, his voice rough with tears. “We went too deep.”

Arthur feels himself nodding, even though he wants to howl. Dream levels. Of course they went without him. It's masochistic, but he has to know: “How deep?”

“Five levels. Six? I don't even know any more.”

He should never have left. He should never have walked out on them, not when Mal was so fixated. “How long?” 

Dom hesitates. When he does speak, it comes out as a confession. “Years. We were there for years.”

The words are as painful as a punch in the gut. How could they? “Did you even think about me?”

“Yes.” The words come out slowly, painfully, as if they're as hard for Dom to say as they are for Arthur to hear. “But we had to get past it.”

“Why?” What was so good there, that they would rather forget him? 

Dom's fingers twist in the blankets. “We couldn't get out.”

“Couldn't?”

“We tried. We both tried, so many times.” Dom takes another hitching breath and presses a fist against his chest. He's trying not to weep again. “But that far down...”

Arthur's mind spins out scenarios, connecting facts, and feeds him a horrifying conclusion. “She didn't believe you were back.”

Dom moans, a low hurt noise that he cuts off with another sob. “No. I tried to convince her...”

It doesn't make sense. “You should've called me. I could've tried --”

“-- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry --” Dom cuts in.

“Don't make me slap you again,” Arthur snaps back.

Dom laughs brokenly. “I'd forgotten how vicious you were.”

The realization makes Arthur's breath catch. He won't call it a sob, he won't. “You forgot me entirely. You both did.”

Dom hangs his head. “When we got back, I didn't even recognize James and Philippa. Our children. We'd imagined them so many different ways. When I thought of you -- I didn't want to hurt you with that.”

Arthur could see it. Dom, trying to be kind, never once thinking that they might not have the time.

“I lost both of you.” They'd slipped away from him, farther than he could ever have reached, and he never even knew it was happening. Arthur feels tears welling up and blinks them away. He didn't like to cry in front of strangers, and that's what they are now, strangers who'd once loved... people who didn't exist any more.

Dom is reaching for him. “Arthur --” 

He knocks Dom's hand away as he tries to scramble off the bed, but Dom grabs him from behind and Arthur can't get any purchase on the blankets. He throws a punch without thinking, but it doesn't land. Dom twists sharply and Arthur's world tumbles sideways. When it settles, he is pinned to the bed, with Dom's weight like lead on top of him.

Dom presses his cheek against Arthur's, his stubble rough on Arthur's skin. “Don't leave me.”

Arthur shoves against Dom's hold, but can't get the leverage to move him. “ _You_ left _me_.”

“I did. I know I did.” Dom's voice is thick with guilt and edging toward desperation. “Arthur. Take me back.”

Arthur freezes under him.

“Please,” Dom begs again. “Let me try, at least.”

“There's nothing left of us.”

“Then we'll make something new. We have to.” Dom drops his head against Arthur's shoulder and digs his hands under Arthur’s jacket, trying to pull himself closer. “Please, Arthur.”

The cold, desperate hurt in Arthur's chest cracks open. He wants, so much, to be able to trust Dom. To be able to salvage _something_ from the wreckage of their life together. There has been no dreamtime for his heart to grow away from them, no dark years of separation to harden him against Dom's pleas.

Arthur doesn't want to be alone.

But that means sharing something worse than loneliness. There’s still a ghost in the room for both of them, three where there are only two.

Arthur wraps his arms around Dom, and the other man sags gratefully against him.

Arthur just breathes for a long moment, his eyes closed against even the pale light of the room. He can't face the world for this. “Mal is dead.”

He's never said the words before. With everything that he's done to find Dom, he's never really let himself believe them, either.

“Because of me,” Dom says, and starts to roll away.

But Arthur holds on and doesn't let him go. “I forgive you.”

Dom jerks. “You can't.”

“Yes, I can. I have to.” Arthur digs his fingers into the cloth of Dom's jacket, reaching for the warmth underneath. “I loved her, too. And I'm telling you: I forgive you.”

Dom starts to weep again, but this time, he doesn't turn away. He presses his forehead to Arthur's, eyes squeezed shut, but he doesn't turn away.

Arthur feels his own tears start again, but he doesn't fight them. His heart is still bleak with grief and the pain of betrayal, but there is a thin, frail light in the darkness now. He doesn't have to carry this alone.


End file.
